3 Reasons to Take Control of SaaS in 2018

Published in

Alpin.io

3 min readJan 2, 2018

In the last decade, we have all watched cloud adoption continue to explode, with this year’s SaaS growth expected to increase 20 percent to $46.3 billion. SaaS has been growing so fast for so many years that it seems like old news. In reality, that SaaS growth has made cloud software applications into a big line item on the budget, and a big set of security headaches.

Smart companies are committing to take control of SaaS in 2018 to get a handle on costs and security — starting with understanding their SaaS landscape.

Almost every company struggles to discover their SaaS subscriptions. According to one survey, “72 percent of IT managers have no idea how many Shadow IT applications are in use within their organizations.” And most organizations are far away from gaining control of their SaaS sprawl. But with new automated tools, there’s a big payback from making this a priority.

Here are the top 3 reasons to take control of your SaaS apps in 2018:

1. Skyrocketing Cost Growth

It’s easy to see why SaaS growth is so pervasive. SaaS products deliver meaningful value to customers and make user adoption incredibly easy. This has meant that many companies have seen the number, size and cost of SaaS subscriptions grow quickly across all departments.

A recent survey found that IT professionals expect 80% of their IT budget to be cloud-based within an average of 15 months. For many, this means a large percentage of the IT budget is no longer under the direct control of the IT department. In fact, the IT department may not even know which SaaS subscriptions are being used! There are many ways that SaaS subscriptions and costs can remain hidden.

Why this is important: Taking control of SaaS spend will save money that can be applied to more productive uses. It also means you won’t bust through budgets. And, you’ll have better info for your financial forecasts.

2. Fast-Spreading Security Risks

With the increasing number of SaaS applications, comes increased risk. Users can unknowingly allow outside access to your company’s sensitive data. In 2017, we saw a number of software breaches that leaked important data of millions of Americans. Interestingly, over half (52%) of IT professionals have tracked a malware infection to a SaaS application.

You cannot expect airtight solutions to privacy and security from the makers of the hundreds or thousands of cloud applications in use at your company. Instead, you need to proactively discover and take control of the full array of your SaaS subscriptions.

Why this is important: Your employees can easily introduce vulnerabilities into your otherwise secure system. By discovering when they are taking risky actions or giving dangerous permissions, you maintain security.

3. The Black Hole: Time Spent Tracking and Managing Software & SaaS Apps

In a world of just a few applications, manual processes and spreadsheets used to be enough. But if you are still tracking SaaS subscriptions manually, you are wasting precious time — and missing out on seeing the bigger picture of your SaaS landscape. You can bet there are many more applications at your company than anyone knows, or will admit. Uncovering these manually is not just a huge chore, it’s almost impossible.

And the workload is about to go up, if it hasn’t already. In May of 2018, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect, impacting just about every sizable company even outside of Europe. Identifying your vendors and their GDPR compliance will be top priority, meaning more time spent tracking down details about your SaaS and other vendors.

Why this is important: Time spent running around with spreadsheets is time badly spent. Be more efficient by using a SaaS management tool like Alpin to uncover all of your cloud apps, as well as avoid significant fines and penalties (such as the apocalyptic “€20M or 4% of annual revenue fine” for failing to be GDPR compliant).

Save money. Increase security. Stop wasting time. Those are 3 great reasons to take control of your SaaS in 2018. And it’s easier than you think, using Alpin.